SpringdaleExtreme!
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Scandalous!
The potential for Canterwood-like performance from Springdale boards is certainly tantalizing for enthusiasts looking for high-end performance on mid-range boards, and could significantly erode the market for Canterwood-based products. But can a Springdale board really deliver performance that rivals motherboards based on the Canterwood chipset? We'll find out with Albatron's PX865PE Pro II and its "Extreme" memory timing option.
There's more to the PX865PE Pro II than "Extreme" memory timings, too. The board offers "parallel" and Serial ATA RAID, lots of USB 2.0 and Firewire ports, and Envy-powered 7.l-channel audio. Does the PX865PE Pro II have the performance and features to take on high-end Canterwood offerings? Let's find out.
The specs
How does the PX865PE Pro II look at a glance? Check out the spec sheet:
| CPU support | Socket 478-based Intel Pentium 4 processors |
| Form factor | ATX |
| Chipset | Intel "Springdale" 865PE |
| North bridge | Intel 865PE |
| South bridge | Intel ICH5R |
| Interconnect | Intel Accelerated Hub (266MB/sec) |
| PCI slots | 5 32-bit/33MHz |
| AGP slots | 1, 4X/8X AGP 8X (1.5V only) |
| AMR/CNR slots | None |
| Memory | 4 184-pin DIMM sockets Maximum of 4GB of DDR400/333/266 SDRAM |
| Storage I/O | Floppy disk 2 channels ATA/100 |
| Serial ATA | 2 channels Serial ATA 150 via ICH5R south bridge |
| RAID | Serial ATA RAID 0 support via ICH5R south bridge 2 channels ATA/133 RAID 0, 1 via Promise PDC20276 |
| Legacy ports | 1 PS/2 keyboard, 1 PS/2 mouse, Serial and Parallel ports |
| USB | 2 USB 2.0/1.1 ports 4 additional USB 2.0/1.1 ports via PCI expansion header |
| Firewire | 2 IEEE 1394 Firewire via TSB43AB23 Firewire controller |
| Audio | 6-channel audio via Envy24PT/VT1616/WDC8728 analog front, rear, surround, and center outputs analog line in and microphone inputs digital S/PDIF input and output ports (RCA and Tos-Link) |
| Video | None |
| Ethernet | 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet via Intel CSA GbE controller |
| BIOS | Phoenix AwardBIOS |
| Bus speeds | FSB: 100-333MHz in 1MHz increments AGP: 66-76MHz in 1MHz increments PCI: 33-38MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Bus dividers | DRAM: 1.33x, 1.6x, 2x, 2.5x, 2.66x |
| Voltages | CPU: 0.8275-1.6V in 0.005V increments DRAM: 2.55-2.85V in 0.1V increments AGP: 1.5-1.8V in 0.1V increments |
| Monitoring | Voltage, fan status, and temperature monitoring |
The PX865PE Pro II gets checkmarks next to all the important integrated peripheral categories, and even serves up a few more exotic solutions here and there. I'll be going over each of these peripherals in detail, but let's look at the board's layout first.
